Theory of Urban Planning and Design:
Urban design and planning since the crisis
of the modern city
Inhoudsopgave
Lecture 1: Understanding the crisis of the modern city .......................................................................... 3
Three questions ............................................................................................................................... 3
What is ‘the modern city’? .............................................................................................................. 3
What is ‘modern urban planning and design’? ............................................................................... 3
What is ‘functional urbanism’? ....................................................................................................... 3
Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM)............................................................... 4
Modern city models ........................................................................................................................ 5
Proposed models ............................................................................................................................. 5
Linear city ........................................................................................................................................ 6
Das Neue Frankfurt ......................................................................................................................... 7
Chronological ................................................................................................................................... 8
Athens Charter of 1943 ................................................................................................................... 8
Modern Urbanism as determined by CIAM by the mid-20th century ............................................ 9
The Critique of the unified and coherent program of CIAM. ........................................................ 10
Modern Urbanism as determined by CIAM by the mid-20th century: THE CRISIS ....................... 11
The crisis of modern city planning illustrated ............................................................................... 12
Satellite city ................................................................................................................................... 15
‘Collective & highrise housing’ ...................................................................................................... 16
Corridor development and the Linear City .................................................................................... 16
There are 4 types of reactions of urban design............................................................................. 17
Lecture 2: Team X and the Architecture of the City .............................................................................. 21
First reaction.................................................................................................................................. 21
CIAM 8, 1951 ................................................................................................................................. 21
Team X ........................................................................................................................................... 21
Allison & Peter Smithson ............................................................................................................... 22
Jacob Bakema, 1914-1981 ............................................................................................................. 24
Georges Candilis, 1913-1995 ......................................................................................................... 26
Conclusions of Team X................................................................................................................... 31
Second reaction ............................................................................................................................. 31
1
, Kevin Lynch .................................................................................................................................... 31
Gordon Cullen................................................................................................................................ 32
Aldo Rossi and “the architecture of the city” (1931-1997) ........................................................... 32
The rediscovery of the city fabric & development of the morpho-typological approach. ........... 35
Philippe Panerai, Jean Castex ........................................................................................................ 36
Aldo Rossi and Giorgio Grassi ........................................................................................................ 38
Giorgio Grassi ................................................................................................................................ 39
Lecture 3: ‘Mnemonis or rhetoric?’ Urbanism in the 1970s-80s .......................................................... 40
Second reaction ............................................................................................................................. 40
AURA.............................................................................................................................................. 40
IBA ................................................................................................................................................. 44
Third reaction ................................................................................................................................ 46
Robert Venturi and Deise Scott Brown ......................................................................................... 47
Rem Koolhaas ................................................................................................................................ 48
Bernard Tschumi............................................................................................................................ 50
Mnemosis vs. Rethoric .................................................................................................................. 52
OMA/Koolhaas .............................................................................................................................. 53
Criticism of the new urban condition: the network city ............................................................... 55
Stephen Graham, Splintering urbanism: ....................................................................................... 55
Zaha Hadid ..................................................................................................................................... 57
Bernard Tschumi............................................................................................................................ 57
Lecture 4: The urban project in the 1990s ............................................................................................ 59
Fracesco Indovina .......................................................................................................................... 60
Stefano Boeri ................................................................................................................................. 60
The ‘urban project’ in southern Europe: a new tradition in urban design.................................... 64
Joan Busquets ................................................................................................................................ 65
Oriol Bohigas ................................................................................................................................. 66
Manuel de Solà Moralles ............................................................................................................... 69
The urban project: The emerging contours of a different urban project ..................................... 70
The urban project: the Dutch example ......................................................................................... 70
Bringing the urban project to Belgium .......................................................................................... 73
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 83
Lecture 5: Bringing the urban projects to Brussels ............................................................................... 85
The urban project .......................................................................................................................... 85
Mobilizing urban renewal and urban design for ‘a small world city’ ............................................ 85
2
,Lecture 1: Understanding the crisis of the modern city
Three questions
1. What is the crisis/are the problems our cities are confronted with today?
2. How does the city response to this crisis?
3. How to deal with the contemporary city? – in thoughts = THEORIES and in PRACTICE?
This implies that since the end of the modernist urban planning, our cities are still facing varies types
of crisis which allows us to go back in history, but also to discuss some pressing issues that cities face
today and how planning is trying to deal with that.
What is ‘the modern city’?
= The imprint of ‘modern urban planning and design’ on the city
- The modernist solutions in the city
- Responding to a number of societal changes on the city
This resulted in the disruption of the pre-existing patterns of development of cities:
- The city as a relatively compact settlement = the historical city.
- The pattern of concentric growth (la Ville tentaculaire, Emile Verhaeren).
What is ‘modern urban planning and design’?
= Urban planning and design theory and practice since the second half of the 20th century.
A key concept that is even today very strong in urban planning is functional urbanism.
What is ‘functional urbanism’?
= An approach that conceives the city as a composition of functionally homogenous areas destined to
housing, work and recreation linked by a traffic system. All these different urban functions are all
necessary for functional urbanism. One of the things we should prevent is hindrance between different
projects.
So all the areas each have their particular type of activity -> all human activities have their OWN space
in the city. According to modernists all these different elements need to be separated in their own
zones or areas which are linked by an efficient traffic system.
Where did these ideas come from? Mainly in response to what happened in a 19th century city where
industries, traffic was really creating unhealthy living conditions in the popular quarters where migrant
workers were trying to find jobs in the factories -> they were facing very poor housing conditions,
literally in the shadow of the factory’s smoke.
So the idea of the functional city was developed in the early 20th century, by people like Cornelis van
Eesteren (1928), a Dutch urbanist who talked about land use plans for the first time (identifying the
different land uses in cities), but also the practice of ‘zoning’ as it was developed in the United States.
This was also in the context of rapidly growing cities, cities that started to become high rise cities and
where in fact the growth of particular urban activities created problems for other urban activities.
- Socialist approach: we need to develop a functionalist city because it is for the benefit of our
poor population of workers.
- Liberal approach: under the heading of the protection of property rights – what one property
owner does on his plot should not have an negative impact on what the next person wants to
do with his plot.
3
, These conflicting land uses in the city needed to be regulated, this led to the zoning where all areas
have their own destination.
Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM)
The modernist approach of urban planning went hand in hand with a modernism in the architectural
field: a new generation of architects also promoted a functionalistic approach, rejecting things like
ornamentation, etc. These modernist architects and urbanists gathered in regular congresses,
completely devoted to the idea of the functional city. New ideas were introduced and presented at
these congresses.
Brussels, Victor Bourgeois CIAM 4, 1933 Functional City Presentation
According to these very preformatted mappings, many European cities were mapped out in a
standardized way: central office district, housing districts, more popular (densely built) housing and
the more luxurious areas with green spaces and the industrial spaces (in black). So these were the first
maps identifying these different land uses in the city and putting them within their separate areas/
Starting point for a whole tradition of modernist zoning and land use plans:
This is an example from Hasselt-Genk, 1965 =
the time when in Belgium the start was given to
create a zoning for the entire territory delimiting
in which areas agriculture (yellow), housing
(red), industries (purple) and green spaces could
occur.
➔ Functionalist approach not just in the city but
the whole territory.
CIAM started in 1928: preparing a map of different cities and use the same legend for all (graphical
presentation) -> Creation of zoning plans.
- CIAM 1, Decleration of La Sarraz 1928 Under the heading of ‘urbanism’ the idea of functional
zoning is proposed.
4
Urban design and planning since the crisis
of the modern city
Inhoudsopgave
Lecture 1: Understanding the crisis of the modern city .......................................................................... 3
Three questions ............................................................................................................................... 3
What is ‘the modern city’? .............................................................................................................. 3
What is ‘modern urban planning and design’? ............................................................................... 3
What is ‘functional urbanism’? ....................................................................................................... 3
Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM)............................................................... 4
Modern city models ........................................................................................................................ 5
Proposed models ............................................................................................................................. 5
Linear city ........................................................................................................................................ 6
Das Neue Frankfurt ......................................................................................................................... 7
Chronological ................................................................................................................................... 8
Athens Charter of 1943 ................................................................................................................... 8
Modern Urbanism as determined by CIAM by the mid-20th century ............................................ 9
The Critique of the unified and coherent program of CIAM. ........................................................ 10
Modern Urbanism as determined by CIAM by the mid-20th century: THE CRISIS ....................... 11
The crisis of modern city planning illustrated ............................................................................... 12
Satellite city ................................................................................................................................... 15
‘Collective & highrise housing’ ...................................................................................................... 16
Corridor development and the Linear City .................................................................................... 16
There are 4 types of reactions of urban design............................................................................. 17
Lecture 2: Team X and the Architecture of the City .............................................................................. 21
First reaction.................................................................................................................................. 21
CIAM 8, 1951 ................................................................................................................................. 21
Team X ........................................................................................................................................... 21
Allison & Peter Smithson ............................................................................................................... 22
Jacob Bakema, 1914-1981 ............................................................................................................. 24
Georges Candilis, 1913-1995 ......................................................................................................... 26
Conclusions of Team X................................................................................................................... 31
Second reaction ............................................................................................................................. 31
1
, Kevin Lynch .................................................................................................................................... 31
Gordon Cullen................................................................................................................................ 32
Aldo Rossi and “the architecture of the city” (1931-1997) ........................................................... 32
The rediscovery of the city fabric & development of the morpho-typological approach. ........... 35
Philippe Panerai, Jean Castex ........................................................................................................ 36
Aldo Rossi and Giorgio Grassi ........................................................................................................ 38
Giorgio Grassi ................................................................................................................................ 39
Lecture 3: ‘Mnemonis or rhetoric?’ Urbanism in the 1970s-80s .......................................................... 40
Second reaction ............................................................................................................................. 40
AURA.............................................................................................................................................. 40
IBA ................................................................................................................................................. 44
Third reaction ................................................................................................................................ 46
Robert Venturi and Deise Scott Brown ......................................................................................... 47
Rem Koolhaas ................................................................................................................................ 48
Bernard Tschumi............................................................................................................................ 50
Mnemosis vs. Rethoric .................................................................................................................. 52
OMA/Koolhaas .............................................................................................................................. 53
Criticism of the new urban condition: the network city ............................................................... 55
Stephen Graham, Splintering urbanism: ....................................................................................... 55
Zaha Hadid ..................................................................................................................................... 57
Bernard Tschumi............................................................................................................................ 57
Lecture 4: The urban project in the 1990s ............................................................................................ 59
Fracesco Indovina .......................................................................................................................... 60
Stefano Boeri ................................................................................................................................. 60
The ‘urban project’ in southern Europe: a new tradition in urban design.................................... 64
Joan Busquets ................................................................................................................................ 65
Oriol Bohigas ................................................................................................................................. 66
Manuel de Solà Moralles ............................................................................................................... 69
The urban project: The emerging contours of a different urban project ..................................... 70
The urban project: the Dutch example ......................................................................................... 70
Bringing the urban project to Belgium .......................................................................................... 73
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 83
Lecture 5: Bringing the urban projects to Brussels ............................................................................... 85
The urban project .......................................................................................................................... 85
Mobilizing urban renewal and urban design for ‘a small world city’ ............................................ 85
2
,Lecture 1: Understanding the crisis of the modern city
Three questions
1. What is the crisis/are the problems our cities are confronted with today?
2. How does the city response to this crisis?
3. How to deal with the contemporary city? – in thoughts = THEORIES and in PRACTICE?
This implies that since the end of the modernist urban planning, our cities are still facing varies types
of crisis which allows us to go back in history, but also to discuss some pressing issues that cities face
today and how planning is trying to deal with that.
What is ‘the modern city’?
= The imprint of ‘modern urban planning and design’ on the city
- The modernist solutions in the city
- Responding to a number of societal changes on the city
This resulted in the disruption of the pre-existing patterns of development of cities:
- The city as a relatively compact settlement = the historical city.
- The pattern of concentric growth (la Ville tentaculaire, Emile Verhaeren).
What is ‘modern urban planning and design’?
= Urban planning and design theory and practice since the second half of the 20th century.
A key concept that is even today very strong in urban planning is functional urbanism.
What is ‘functional urbanism’?
= An approach that conceives the city as a composition of functionally homogenous areas destined to
housing, work and recreation linked by a traffic system. All these different urban functions are all
necessary for functional urbanism. One of the things we should prevent is hindrance between different
projects.
So all the areas each have their particular type of activity -> all human activities have their OWN space
in the city. According to modernists all these different elements need to be separated in their own
zones or areas which are linked by an efficient traffic system.
Where did these ideas come from? Mainly in response to what happened in a 19th century city where
industries, traffic was really creating unhealthy living conditions in the popular quarters where migrant
workers were trying to find jobs in the factories -> they were facing very poor housing conditions,
literally in the shadow of the factory’s smoke.
So the idea of the functional city was developed in the early 20th century, by people like Cornelis van
Eesteren (1928), a Dutch urbanist who talked about land use plans for the first time (identifying the
different land uses in cities), but also the practice of ‘zoning’ as it was developed in the United States.
This was also in the context of rapidly growing cities, cities that started to become high rise cities and
where in fact the growth of particular urban activities created problems for other urban activities.
- Socialist approach: we need to develop a functionalist city because it is for the benefit of our
poor population of workers.
- Liberal approach: under the heading of the protection of property rights – what one property
owner does on his plot should not have an negative impact on what the next person wants to
do with his plot.
3
, These conflicting land uses in the city needed to be regulated, this led to the zoning where all areas
have their own destination.
Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM)
The modernist approach of urban planning went hand in hand with a modernism in the architectural
field: a new generation of architects also promoted a functionalistic approach, rejecting things like
ornamentation, etc. These modernist architects and urbanists gathered in regular congresses,
completely devoted to the idea of the functional city. New ideas were introduced and presented at
these congresses.
Brussels, Victor Bourgeois CIAM 4, 1933 Functional City Presentation
According to these very preformatted mappings, many European cities were mapped out in a
standardized way: central office district, housing districts, more popular (densely built) housing and
the more luxurious areas with green spaces and the industrial spaces (in black). So these were the first
maps identifying these different land uses in the city and putting them within their separate areas/
Starting point for a whole tradition of modernist zoning and land use plans:
This is an example from Hasselt-Genk, 1965 =
the time when in Belgium the start was given to
create a zoning for the entire territory delimiting
in which areas agriculture (yellow), housing
(red), industries (purple) and green spaces could
occur.
➔ Functionalist approach not just in the city but
the whole territory.
CIAM started in 1928: preparing a map of different cities and use the same legend for all (graphical
presentation) -> Creation of zoning plans.
- CIAM 1, Decleration of La Sarraz 1928 Under the heading of ‘urbanism’ the idea of functional
zoning is proposed.
4
